A Murder of Ravens in Fugue
by Katie Havok
Summary: It's Her voice that brings me back, as it usually is. "We could get arrested for this."


Originally published on Ao3 on July 9th, 2017.

* * *

It's Her voice that brings me back, as it usually is.

"We could get arrested for this."

She doesn't sound worried; if anything, there's a teasing lilt to Her voice, as she tugs at His bowtie. His hair gleams coppery in the low light of the alley when he shakes his head before pulling her close, allowing her to crowd him against the wall.

"I don't really care."

I am learning, through quiet ways, how to make myself more Real. How to make myself solid, almost visible. I can't manipulate my surroundings yet, but the metal pipes in Her brownstone building shriek whenever I move through them. Her walls and floors pop and crackle whenever I try to move over or beyond them.

They know I am there _(here)_ , She and Her Sister both. Though I no longer remember my own name, I know theirs. And though I don't know Him, He knows me—there've been many nights in Her bed where they've discussed me, and they are the only people to visit the granite block with what I presume to be my name carved upon it.

 _(She prays, the first time they visit, in Hebrew. He follows up with an Anglican verse, sketching the sign of the cross over the tuberoses they'd left before they'd disappeared._

 _Magic. I know what they did was Magic, but I don't know how I know that. I don't know who I am, anymore. She says my name, and He says my name, but I don't recognize it.)_

I crowd myself into the corner as He hitches up her dress, a beaded, lace, sea-foam affair. She tips her head back while he touches her gently, delicately, the both of them heedless to the falling rain as Her hands drag over His front.

He makes a sound when She leans in to use her teeth to loosen his bow tie, and they share a breathless laugh before He pulls a slender yellow wand from his dress coat.

I know this magic. I know this thing called a spell, but it brings to my mind _(do I have a mind? Or am I a mind, a lingering remnant?)_ of white hair and cruelly laughing, mismatched eyes, so I shy away from It and the Pain it brings.

He falls to his knees to kiss her body, Her dress gathered around her waist as He guides one of her slender legs over his shoulder. She clutches at him and the wall as he teases her, tastes her, dragging his teeth along the white lace of her garter and kissing the silk edge of her stockings before centering his efforts, concentrating the action of his mouth.

He rolls his eyes up to watch her as she keens His name, and it's with a nasty jolt that I realize his eyes are the same color as her dress.

A trick of the light? Or am I becoming More, the longer I stay and watch?

I don't know, _(I don't know.)_

I can smell them too, I realize. Not with my nose, since I don't have a nose but with something deeper. More profound. A subconscious scent that clings not just to their skin but to Them, a miasma that is both heavy and weightless, light and dark.

Something inside Her seems to break: her hips sway forward at the same instant she keens His name, her fingers curling into his suit jacket. His eyes drift closed as he gentles the actions of his tongue. He gives her a moment to slump and tremble against him before kissing up her body, lingering to suck and nibble her breasts before claiming her mouth.

She says something, and the heavy/light aura around them shifts and contracts, somehow. He repeats her words back to her, making Her grin _(there's a dimple in her cheek, I know, though I'm not quite sure what a dimple is)_ as He pushes her dark, wavy hair away from her face. She kisses him before planting a hand in the center of his chest, shoving him into the wall as she nips at his throat before sinking into a crouch.

She opens his dress slacks and murmurs appreciatively as she pulls him out. I don't want to watch this, but as is usually the case, I'm helpless to look away. They tremble together as she uses her hands and mouth to please him, alternating physical sensation and heated words until His fingers thread erratically through her hair, Her name on his lips.

He says something, and She releases him after one final slow, lingering suck to stand and press two of her fingers into his mouth. He sucks them clean as he tugs her close, urging one of her legs around his waist as their eyes meet. She wraps a slender arm around his shoulders, the other steadying them against the wall when she mounts him. They share a soft groan as their connection is made, kissing lightly as He squares his stance while pushing her hair back, telling her over and over that She is precious to him, that He loves Her, that she is divine.

His words trail off to stuttering silence as she starts to move, rocking her hips, rolling onto the tips of her toes to take _all_ of him before sinking back down with a moan. His scarred hands are everywhere, touching, brushing, guiding, steadying her. She kisses his freckled cheek with a moan as they move together faster, and the scent that clings to them thickens, rising off their body in tendrils until they cover me, surround me.

Drown me.

 _(I remember her, now. I remember dark eyes and sculpted lips, a long, willowy, inarguably feminine body with a mannish effect. I remember tears, and I remember that I **fostered** those tears._

 _I remember a child, and a wand: a Witch and a Scandal._

 _I remember eyes. And a cruel mouth._

 _Wild laughter. Pain._

 _Death.)_

He presses his face into her neck when he chokes, legs trembling as they move faster. She steadies him by murmuring his name, and He clutches her to him until She falls still. He supports her when they slide down the wall, sinking into a crouch on the alley floor before folding his legs beneath him.

She goes to her knees, hovering over Him while he crosses his arms over Her back, supporting her by her slender hips as she _moves_ : fierce and determined and primal, hedonistic and wild and _free_ as they love, and love, and love—until they choke together, break together, and she goes still with a cry, her head falling back as he sinks into Her skin.

Her spine is still bent backward when she opens her eyes, chest heaving beneath His tender lips as She zeroes in on me. I recoil on some blind instinct, and she blinks once, hard, before lifting her head. She straightens and kisses Him as I retract and hide, crowding myself even further into the corner.

I wonder if, perhaps, the rain has given me away, highlighting my form—but she seems unbothered, posture relaxed as she and He cling together, sharing kisses and gentle words in the aftermath of spent passion before standing on wobbly legs.

She helps Him up, and he thanks her with a lingering kiss as they straighten and tuck everything away until they are once again put together and presentable. They kiss, wrapped lovingly around each other as they linger in the embrace before looking around. They raise their wands as one to shield themselves from the rain, and He takes Her willowy arm as they leave, pausing in the narrow, brick doorway for only a moment when he turns his head, eyes roughly angled toward me.

"Goodnight, Mr. Graves," he murmurs, accent doing something strange to the syllables of the name, and it takes me an eternity to realize that the name is _my own_.

I stay in the alley for a long, long time, wrapped in the tendrils of the shared love they've left behind for me, as white hair, white lips, light/dark eyes and his words flash through my mind.

 _(Goodnight, Mr. Graves.)_


End file.
